Our Warrensburg, MO, Car Accident Lawyers Back Proposed Cell Phone Ban for Commercial Truckers

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently made a recommendation to ban cell phone use for truck drivers. This recommendation would prohibit both hands-free and held-held phone use by those who drive commercial motor vehicles. Our Warrensburg, MO, car accident attorneys understand how beneficial this type of ban would be to motorists' safety. The National Safety Council is also backing this plan.

Under the new proposal, drivers would be allowed to use a cell phone only in the event of an emergency. The idea is to help prevent fatal trucking accidents in Warrensburg, MO and elsewhere. This is just one of 15 new bans and recommendations that the NTSB has issued recently.

The recommendation comes after an investigation of a fatal accident that happened in March 2010. The accident occurred after a truck driver was busted using his cell phone nearly 70 times in the 24-hour period just before the crash. Officials concluded that this distraction was the cause of the accident, which claimed 11 lives.

The NTSB says that cell phone use by drivers oftentimes cognitively distracts drivers, taking their attention off driving and negatively affecting their behavior and driving skills. Both hands-free and hand-held devices have been proven to have this effect on drivers.

According to the National Safety Council (NSC), about 25 percent of accidents involve a cell phone-using driver. According to recent studies, using a cell phone affects a driver's brain so much that the distraction can cause them to miss seeing roughly half of their driving environment. In fact, the council made a call for a full-out ban on cell phone use among all drivers back in 2009.

"NSC strongly supports the NTSB recommendation for a total ban," said Janet Froetscher, NSC president and CEO.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were nearly 3,500 people killed on U.S. roadways in 2009 because of traffic accidents that involved a large truck with a gross weight of more than 10,000 pounds. Another 74,000 people were injured in these incidents. According to reports, there were nearly 300,000 trucks involved in accidents on U.S. roadways throughout 2009. During the same year, Missouri officials reported more than 100 large trucks were involved in accidents.

Of the people who were killed in these types of accidents, occupants of passenger vehicles were the most frequent. In 2009, about 75 percent of fatalities occurred to those in the other vehicle, about 10 percent happened to non-occupants and about 15 percent occurred to the occupants of a large truck.

Driver distractions are growing more and more popular as technology advances. But until motorists are able to curb driver distractions, innocent people will continue to be injured or killed on our roadways. Let's all do our part to keep our eyes, ears and mind on the road while tossing distractions to the wind.